The Potential of ICT Adoption in Promoting Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chains: Evidence from Greek Logistics Firms
, Nikolaos P. Rachaniotis 2, Dimitris Spontas 3 and Thomas K. Dasaklis 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear authors
After carefully reading the paper, I have made some comments as follows:
1. The abstract should be improved. Authors should include (i) One sentence clearly stating what is the current knowledge gap, (ii) One sentence explaining how this knowledge gap is addressed.
2. Merge 1.1 into introduction.
3. Provide research questions in introduction.
4. Provide a section 2.4 as research gaps and contributions.
5. The methodology isn’t enough and all tools used in results such as PCA must be presented in section 3.
6. the authors should explain the entire process of the methodology and provide a figure
7. demonstrating the entire process schematically.
8. The questionnaire validation isn’t convincing. How do the authors validate the questionnaire?
9. Please add a sample questionnaire to the paper as appendix.
10. The conclusion must be supported by main findings.
11. It seems that the contributions aren’t enough for a scientific paper.
BR
Comments on the Quality of English Language-
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe topic of this article is very meaningful and is a topic of concern to most people. It is of great significance for strengthening supply chain management. I believe that improvements can be made in several aspects to meet the standards of internationally renowned journals:
1.This article proposes a measurement tool that can be organized into a table with not only textual descriptions.
2.The data analysis method used in this article is relatively simple and common. I think, as an article published in internationally renowned journals, using SPSS only for preliminary analysis of survey research to verify hypotheses is a bit weak in terms of workload. The method should be updated to increase workload.
3.In the Conclusions section of the article, it is recommended to conduct a more in-depth analysis, clarify the innovative points of this article, provide insights for supply chain management, point out the limitations of the research, and propose the next research direction.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsAfter reading the document presented, I would like to comment on the following:
There is a lack of further development of the theoretical framework, or else, linking it to what is to be developed. The conclusions and contributions presented are not sufficient to support the proposed hypotheses. Moreover, the theoretical framework seems to deviate from what is to be demonstrated; there is no guiding idea.
It is not clear why an improvement in ICT can be related to resilience, in the sense that the authors propose (flexible transport), please argue and clarify this point further.
There is an effort to try to justify the linkage of the variables used, but there is no real implication of what is to be demonstrated.
Present a brief summary table of the 10 companies used, for example, annual sales, people employed, sector in which they operate, among others, in order to get an idea of the type of companies being compared. Consider that, although information on the companies is provided, it is too broad to get an idea of the differences between the companies.
It is necessary to develop the results more, associating them to what is stated in the hypotheses, the way in which they are accepted is minimal, the explanations given are not sufficient.
A possible extension of what has been presented would be to complement what has been presented with a cluster analysis, associating the hypotheses to the characteristics of each company.
It seems to me that sustaining that the greater the use of ICT innovations, the more resilient practices exist is a bit forced, especially if we consider that resilience is associated with flexible transportation, we do not see or see an important connection.
In the conclusions (line 486), it gives the impression that they contradict what is presented from line 427 onwards, please clarify.
I hope and encourage the authors to review what has been commented; or better, to explain what has been consulted and suggested.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsA few recommendations for improvement are listed below.
1. Title and Abstract:
(1) Title: The meaning of the title can be clearer, highlighting what the problem is being addressed.
(2) Abstract: The Abstract should be structured and concise. Please refine the background and present the findings using (1), (2), …, according to the standard format of jounal Sustainability. The authors need to present the most significant and interesting results concisely. In addition, the authors can highlight the policy implications of the study in the Abstract. Please check that.
2. Introduction and Literature Review:
(1) The proposal of research questions and the refinement of research contributions are not clear enough for readers. In the last two or three paragraphs of the Introduction, the author should structurally summarize the work they have done in this study clearly, i.e., first, second, third, and so on. Second, they should claim the originality of this study clearly, separating from the introduction of main work this study has done. For example, the intermediating role of ICT and new evidences from logistics sector. Please highlight your contributions to the literature and new knowledge.
(2) The literature review of the study can be improved and enriched. Especially on how ICT will affect energy consumption, and carbon emissions of supply chain and sectors as the authors claimed, some recently published works had examined the relationship from a macro-level or meso-level,. For example, “How information and communication technology drives carbon emissions: A sector-level analysis for China. Energy Economics, 2019”, “How does information and communication technology affect China’s energy intensity? A three-tier structural decomposition analysis, Energy, 2018”, “Carbon-economic inequality in global ICT trade, iScience, 2022”, etc. Please review the papers and justify your research hypothesis and discussions.
3. Methodology and Data
(1) The data source and treatment have been somewhat neglected by the authors. Please add a section of Data and show the data treatment in detail, i.e., how to derive the data from Greek firms. Moreover, the descriptive statistical of samples, i.e., in Section 4, can be placed with the Data Section.
4. Results and discussion:
(1) The authors should present the results and in a clear and structural manner.
(2) Figure 1 to Figure 6 looks a bit small and indistinct, Please ensure a high resolution and uniform presentation of figures. In addition, these figures are insufficiently analyzed.
(3) The authors should analyze and discuss the results thoroughly. The authors could make some comparative analyses with previous studies.
(4) The authors limited their discussions to the results, but not extended to the practical background of other countries’s ICT, GSCM, and SCR. This weakens the significance of this study.
5. Conclusions and policy implications
(1) The main findings, as well as policy implications, should be presented more clearly in separated paragraphs in conclusions. For example, first, second, third, and so on.
(2) The policy implications can be refined. Tell how to do but not should do what.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThere are some grammar and typo mistakes in this manuscript. Please check and improve the language and readability.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors-
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authorsno
Comments on the Quality of English Languageminor
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors0k
